Sunday, 16 August 2009

R. STEVIE MOORE.

Long before the redundant sound recording device tape cassette had its resurgence as a symbol of lo-fi loving and grungy nostalgia, and well before Guided By Voices transferred from a laughable mom’s basement band to the t-shirts of 18 year olds at ATP, and certainly long long before sweet FM friendly melodies bent double with fuzzed up recording worked as the new shit for Ariel Pink. There was R. Stevie Moore, the ‘out there’ pop visionary, musical rebel who left a home in Nashville with his studio owner and Elvis affiliated father for the glamour of home recording and avant garde public-access style TV.

The charming little tags of DIY, Indie and Lo-Fi of which Moore has become known for but not always a credited pioneer of probably don’t enthuse him that much after his 40 odd years of music release history. He is famous for not being famous, and as baffled as the rest of us as to why.